Jailbreak Clones Hit $10

   PS3 Jailbreak clones are being dumped into the market and they're $10 in bulk. That's cheaper than I thought they'd reach since my last price update but as of last night, the prices of the Atmel-based Jailbreak clones reached $10 if you buy in quantities of 200 pieces and up. The updated prices look like this:

Qty         Price
50pcs      US$15/pc
100pcs    US$12/pc
200pcs    US$10/pc

   In another week, I wouldn't be surprised if the biggest discount is $7.50 for 200+ pieces. This is what I would call a market in flux because the price is dropping so quickly from week to week. Eventually, the Jailbreak clones will reach a stable market price which I would assume is $5. From the original Jailbreak price of $160 to $5 in about a month. Is that a highly efficient market pricing mechanism or what?

Official Jailbreak seller also selling clones

   A vendor in China who supplies the official Jailbreak has also started selling clones at roughly $10 below the price of the genuine article. I gotta laugh whenever I use the word "genuine" in reference to a product that enables piracy.

   Sellers in China are merchants at heart so they're going to sell whatever attracts the market audience. I have to assume that everyone's buying the clones at this point. A blurb on the sales letter also mentions that the Jailbreak clones are upgradeable and will be compatible with firmware 3.42 soon. Anyway, the current price breakdown for the Jailbreak and clones is as follows:

Official Jailbreak
10-50pcs      US$25/pc
51-100pcs     US$22/pc
Above 200pcs  US$21.3/pc

Clone Jailbreak
10-50pcs     US$15/pc
51-200pcs     US$13/pc
Above 200pcs   US$11.5/pc

   We're getting closer to my target price of US$18.00 for the Jailbreaks in bulk but maybe in 2 weeks, they'll drop below that level. Lots of clones coming out and everyone is getting into the game. As mentioned before, the company I work for will not sell the Jailbreak or clones because we're not going to get on Sony's shitlist.

Widespread PS3 Piracy

   With news that the PSGroove has been ported over to the iPhone 1G, iPhone 3G, and iPod Touch (first-generation), even more devices are now capable of breaking the Playstation 3 wide open for piracy. I knew Sony was in trouble when I heard from my tweenage cousin (who's hardly ever online or tech-savvy) that he was able to get someone from school to Jailbreak his PS3 with a phone. He didn't specify which phone but I'm guessing an Android phone. I reminded him that piracy was unethical and he responded with the following, "Well, I'm just a kid and I can't afford to pay $60 + tax for a game."

   If the lay people like my little cousin are getting their Playstations hacked, then the malaise of piracy is going to spread fairly far and wide over the course of the next year. I foresee a lot of banning, a lot of patches, and a lot of firmware updates in the PS3's future but the genie's out of the bottle and there'll be no way to trap him inside ever again.

More Jailbreak sellers in Sony's sights

If you're dumb reckless enough to continue selling PS3 mods after Sony's legal victories in multiple jurisdictions around the world, then you probably deserve to get sued. Sony has started legal action against three PS3 Jailbreak vendors in Sweden - Manzzon, Rejoy, and Wechip. Sony is seeking damages of 1 million Swedish Krona (SEK) or US$137,483.50 based on this morning's forex spot. If the Jailbreak is priced at about US$30, the companies would need to sell 4,582 Jailbreaks to pay Sony.

Official Jailbreak Mods Discounted to US$30 Wholesale

The company I work for gets a lot of offers every day from suppliers in Hong Kong, China, Japan, South Korea, and the United States. Last night, a mod supplier based in China sent out an email that's offering to sell the official Jailbreak USB device for a measly US$30 each in bulk. Compare that to the price of US$130 just last week before the news of the PSGroove broke. Guess there were a lot of cancellations especially when Sony basically outlawed the device by winning in Australian Federal Court.

   My company won't touch the Jailbreak since we'd like to stay in business and avoid getting sued but prices are going down and they're going to drop even lower in the next few weeks. My target is US$18 on the wholesale market but prices below that are inevitable since people can basically make their own Jailbreaks now with the PSGroove software.

PS3 Firmware 3.42 Released

   Sony released the PS3 3.42 firmware yesterday. The update patches the security exploit that was present in firmware 3.41 which allowed the PS3 Jailbreak and the patched PSGroove to circumvent the Playstation 3's security measures against "backups" and replay of those backups. The official announcement is linked below:

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2010/09/06/playstation-3-system-software-update-v3-42-now-available/
PlayStation 3 System Software Update v3.42 Now Available

Posted by John Koller // Director, Hardware Marketing
Hi everyone! A minor update to your PS3 system is now available via system software update v3.42 that includes additional security features. For more details and instructions on how to update the system software for the PS3 system, please visit the PS3 System Updates page.

Jailbreak Clampdown Aftermath

   Now that Sony has succeeded in stopping Jailbreak sales and distribution in Australia and is suing a mod reseller in the States, the outrage has begun. Y'know the outrage from pirates. Two of the more common comments from the outraged message board participants over the past few days are listed below in bold.

All I wanted was to do homebrew on the PS3
   Homebrew's available on the PC and you can do all the homebrew you want on that. Homebrew's also available on the Xbox 360 and the Wii but most people with modified consoles don't really use them for homebrew. They have modified consoles so they can play pirated software.

I can make my own "Jailbreak" by using the PSGroove open source code
   The guy who asked if he could burn the source code onto a disc and Jailbreak his PS3 that way probably wouldn't get the job done but yes, there are alternative hacks weeding their way through the net now. One recently announced method is Jailbreaking the PS3 by using an Android phone while another uses a Nokia N900 mobile phone with the PSFreedom source code (patched to play backups). The cat's out of the bag so DIY Jailbreak is a reality at this point. Sony's hope is that most aspiring pirates won't have the reading comprehension or the ability to follow the instructions in order to perform the mod themselves.

Sony sues US-based Jailbreak seller

   Sony has filed a lawsuit in California against a US-based reseller of the PS3 Jailbreak. The defendants named in the lawsuit are Zoomba LDC and WWW.SHOPPSJAILBREAK.COM.

The filing may be viewed through the link below. 

http://dockets.justia.com/docket/california/candce/3:2010cv03909/231381

The ADR Scheduling Order, VRW Standing Order, Standing Order, and the Summons Issued related to the lawsuit may be purchased for 0.99 cents each through the following link:

http://www.rfcexpress.com/lawsuit-documents.asp?ID=64147

   Sony has accused the defendants of trademark and copyright infringement and violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Specifically, the DMCA criminalizes the distribution of devices that are designed to circumvent the security measures that protect a copyrighted work from being copied or in the case of the Jailbreak, "backed up" to hard drive. Zoomba LDC's contact address as listed on their Jailbreak sales site is located in Houston, TX which places the company within the jurisdiction of the DMCA.

Jailbreak injunction upheld

   Sony has prevailed against the Jailbreak - an Australian Federal Court has issued an order that prevents the mod resellers named in Sony's injunction from selling, distributing, or offering the Jailbreak in Australia.

The text of the court order follows below:

THE COURT ORDERS BY CONSENT BUT WITHOUT ADMISSIONS, THAT:

1. Upon the Applicants undertaking to the Court to:

(i)submit to such order (if any) as the Court may consider to be just for the payment of compensation, to be assessed by the Court or as it may direct, to any person whether or not a party, adversely affected by the operation of Orders 3 to 5 set out below or any continuation (with or without variation); and

(ii)pay the compensation referred to in (a) to the person or persons there referred to.

1.2 ORDERS that, until further order, the First, Second, Third and Fourth Respondents and each of them, whether by themselves, their servants or agents, be restrained from doing any of the following acts with respect to all and any Universal Serial Bus devices described as "PSJailbreak" in Exhibit PJC-1 of the affidavit of Peter John Chalk sworn on 26 August 2010 and filed herein, as packaged, and distributed or threatened to be distributed by the Respondents (PSJailbreak Devices):

(i)importing them into Australia with the intention of providing them to another person;

(ii)distributing them to another person;

(iii)offering them to the public;

(iv)providing them to another person; and/or

(v)otherwise dealing in them.

save that it will not be a breach of Order 2(a) for the First or Second Respondent to import all and any PSJailbreak Devices in respect of which any orders were placed prior to 27 August 2010, provided that any such importation is subject to the undertaking in paragraph 5 below.

1.3 ORDERS that, the First, Second, Third and Fourth Respondents and each of them deliver up to the solicitors for the Applicants, to be held until further order, any and all PSJailbreak Devices in those Respondents' possession custody or control.

1.4 ORDERS that, until further order, the First, Second, Third and Fourth Respondents and each of them continue to deliver up to the solicitors for the Applicants, to be held until further order, any and all PSJailbreak Devices that come into those Respondents' possession custody or control (including the sample device referred to in paragraph 7 of the Affidavit of the Second Respondent affirmed on 2 September 2010), forthwith upon them doing so.

1.5 NOTES the undertaking to the Court given by the First and Second Respondents by their counsel:

(i)forthwith to notify the supplier of PSJailbreak Devices (identified as China Sun Trading Limited of China, being the beneficiary of account number 817-374473-838 at the HSBC Hong Kong branch, 1 Queen's Road Central, Hong Kong with SWIFT Address HSBCHKHHHKH) that any goods ordered by the First and Second Respondents are to be shipped to Blake Dawson to the attention of Peter Chalk at Level 26, 181 William Street, Melbourne, VIC, 3000 and not to the First or Second Respondents; and

(ii)to deliver up in accordance with Order 4 above to the solicitors for the Applicants any PSJailbreak Devices received.

1.6 NOTES the undertaking to the Court of Blake Dawson:

(i)to hold any such goods securely subject to any further order of the Court; and

(ii)promptly to notify the solicitors for Respondents of the receipt of any such goods and to supply copies of any documentation received with them.

1.7 RESERVES LIBERTY to the parties to apply on 24 hours' notice, including for the purpose of the First and Second Respondents giving notice on or after 9 September 2010 that they wish the matter to be relisted for the resumption of the Applicants' application for interlocutory relief.

1.8 ORDERS that costs be reserved.

Jailbreak Injunction Decision Tomorrow

   An Australian Federal Court will decide tomorrow if the injunction against the sale of the Playstation 3 Jailbreak becomes permanent. I've bet $30 on a wager against a scenester that the ban stays and the mod sellers are SOL. Why $30? That was all I had in my pocket at the time we were shooting the shit about mods and pondering the history of the universe. The Jailbreak issue is probably moot however because the PSGroove is out and in the wild.

   The PSGroove project was revealed a couple of days ago but it's an ethical hack. Piracy isn't enabled on the USB injection code but it's only a matter of time before someone re-enables the piracy features so that game dumps to HDD and backups are playable. Once a hack like that is released, it's out there forever and free for anyone to use, modify, and engineer for whatever reason. That's the nature of the internet where all of your embarrassing photos, dumb lines, and dick jokes are saved on someone's server or hard drive for all of eternity.

PS3 Jailbreak Broken

   A software developer who goes by the name Mathieu Hervais has apparently hacked and dumped (copied) the contents of the Jailbreak USB dongle and released it as an open source project under the name "PSGroove." The exploit files are listed on Github under the psgroove subfolder. The zip file that's been released into filesharing networks contains five hexadecimal data files which can be programmed into the following Atmel AT90USB microcontrollers:

AT90USB162
AT90USB646

AT90USB647

AT90USB1286

AT90USB1287

ATMEGA32U4

   The microcontrollers plug into the USB port of a PC or console to retrieve on-board documentation and run AVR program code. Disane explains the code injection process below:

"This is the disassembled PPC code more like the shell code that is being injected. The best way would be to use the lv2 dump and this to figure out how the stack overflow exploit works in the USB buffer of the PS3 after that it can be reproduced on any FW. On both slim and fat PS3s.
The JIG ID is probably passed to trigger some code pathern which the Configuration Descriptor overflows and injects the shell code after that the code gets executed. The shell code patches lv2 to run fselfs and all kinds of interesting flags which I haven’t noticed yet…"

   Skimming over the message boards and IRC, there's obvious excitement brewing today over the possibility of low cost Jailbreak clones. One poster on a popular message board asked if he could burn the .hex files onto a disc and Jailbreak his PS3 that way.

   From the instructions that were released last night:

To use this exploit:
• Hard power cycle your PS3 (using the switch in back, or unplug it)
• Plug the dongle into your PS3.
• Press the PS3 power button, followed quickly by the eject button.
After a few seconds, the first LED on your dongle should light up. After about 5 seconds, the second LED will light up (or the LED will just go off, if you only have one). This means the exploit worked! You can see the new "Install Package Files" menu option in the game menu.

Notes

• A programmed dongle won't enumerate properly on a PC, so don't worry about that.

• This software is not intended to enable piracy, and such features have been disabled. This software is intended to allow the execution of unsigned third-party apps and games on the PS3.

Australian Federal Court extends ban on PS3 Jailbreak

   Sony's injunction against sales of the PS3 Jailbreak mod has been extended by Australian Federal Court until Friday of this week. Sony is seeking a permanent ban on sales of the Jailbreak which will make the device illegal to sell in Australia.

A snippet from today's Sidney Morning Herald is pasted below:

"The judge who first heard the matter, Justice Dodds-Streeton, will again hear it this Friday. Justice Kenny heard it today and ordered that the orders that were previously made by Justice Dodds-Streeton be continued until Friday, when the case would go back before that judge."

Sony succeeds in banning PS3 Jailbreak

   Last week, Sony of Australia sought an injunction to halt the sales of the Playstation 3 Jailbreak USB device. The company succeeded in convincing the Australian Federal Court to uphold the injunction and the three Australian retailers named in the case have been blocked from selling the Jailbreak. Tomorrow, Sony will file to make the ban permanent in Australia.

   Snippets from today's article from the Sidney Morning Herald follows below:

"Judge Julie Anne Dodds-Streeton issued the temporary ban ahead of a hearing tomorrow morning where Sony will make its case for a permanent block on sales."

"This is the first time the security of the PS3 has been broken and the injunction requires the distributors to hand all of their stock of the device to Sony. The company will then have licence to analyse the chips and work on a way of blocking them, with Justice Dodds-Streeton's order allowing for even "destructive analysis"."

   Following the article, there are 54 comments as of 10:00AM this morning. Some use the premise of "freedom" and "homebrew" to justify the ability to pirate software. The comments from two mod resellers at the end of the article also explain their fight for the little guy, battling Goliath, and how the Federal Court is setting dangerous precedents.

   The injunction currently only applies to Australian jurisdictions but mod chip sellers in Canada seem to think that they're not affected by the action in Australia. Looking at previous actions in Canada, Sony has already shut down mod vendors in previous years and they effectively shut down Lik-Sang in Hong Kong by filing a lawsuit against the company which was not answered. In that case, Sony won by default judgment because Lik-Sang representatives did not appear in court.

PS3 Jailbreak Site Irony

Pirate Hubris

   The PS3 Jailbreak was designed to circumvent Sony's copy protection but it's ironic that their site states the following:

"Beware of imitators and Chinese knockoffs"

   So, pirates are afraid of having their product pirated? Since the Jailbreak is essentially a USB drive with an executable program on it, bootleggers who crack and copy the device will assuredly start selling their own versions of the Jailbreak within days of its release into the market. 
   The current price of the dongle is approximately US$120 but if bootlegs are manufactured, Gaming Exodus would anticipate prices to plunge below US$20 as the market is flooded with imitations and "Chinese knockoffs." This situation would be similar to the days of the original Playstation modchips where massive supplies soon forced prices from roughly $40 per chip to less than $5.

The Jailbreak site's "Engrish" description for the Jailbreak follows below:

http://psjailbreak.com/

* PS Jailbreak is a USB plug and play solution that installs in seconds, keeping your valid warranty seal in tact.

* Easy to use installer and GUI takes you step by step.

* Compatible with all production models FAT and SLIM. Supports all regions: USA, JAP, PAL and KOREA

* PS Jailbreak disables forced software updates and will never brick your console.

* Supports all games (it does not allow backups of bluray movies , dvd movies , or past consoles games)

* Backup games to your internal hard drive or external hard drive through USB, and boot directly off GUI. Eliminating the need for expensive blueray burners and costly blank media.

* Play backups off your hard drives 2x as fast as off the blueray drive. This eliminates lags and glitches to provide you with smoother game play.

* Open up your console to a new generation of homebrew applications. Load homebrew apps/games off any USB hard drive/flash drive.

* Fully updatable with new features/updates by connecting PS Jailbreak to any computers USB port.

* For installation instructions and operation instructions please click here

Playstation 3 Jailbreak Sales Halted

   Sony has convinced an Australian Federal Court to issue an injunction against presales of the Playstation 3 Jailbreak mod which plugs into the PS3's USB port. Based on information released thus far, the Jailbreak allows the Playstation 3 to boot pirated software from a hard drive. Further information appears to indicate that the Playstation 3's normal boot process is interrupted and the software on the Jailbreak allows the Playstation 3 console to mimic the functionality of a development station PS3. An original Playstation 3 game is still required to load the games stored on the hard drive but the potential for rampant piracy allowed Sony to obtain the injunction. Three Australian modchip sellers were named in the injunction:

1) Quantronics
2) OzModChips.com
3) ModSupplier.com

   Although modchips are illegal in most parts of the world, they are legal in Australia. The injunction is in force until August 31. If the injunction is stayed, the PS3 Jailbreak will remain unavailable for sale.

   The Jailbreak website also lists resellers in Canada, Europe, and the United States. Modchips and copyright circumvention devices are illegal in the States and it is unclear if the US-based seller "Shop PS Jailbreak" is aware of the ramifications and legal liabilities of selling an outlawed product. Stay tuned for the drama to unfold.